OpenSimSim vs Shiftbase

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Our analysts compared OpenSimSim vs Shiftbase based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Employee Scheduling Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

OpenSimSim is a cloud-based platform for creating, communicating and managing schedules for hourly workers. Managers can create and manage schedules using pre-built templates, automated conflict alerts and drag-and-drop tools. It incorporates employee availability, time-off requests and shift trading into a single, unified view to avoid scheduling errors.

Employees can use self-service portals to view schedules, request time off and swap shifts with colleagues, fostering a sense of ownership over their work-life balance. The mobile app enhances accessibility, allowing managers and employees to stay connected and informed on the go.

Built-in messaging enables interaction between team members, eliminating the need for external communication modules. Additionally, analytics helps track labor costs, identify scheduling patterns and optimize staffing levels. Businesses can get actionable insights and make data-driven decisions to improve overall efficiency and profitability.

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Shiftbase is workforce management software that helps businesses with frontline workers manage employee schedules, track time, monitor attendance, handle time-off requests and maintain employee profiles. It offers a comprehensive set of features to streamline HR processes and optimize shift and task management.

Its scheduling feature helps you easily create, modify and share employee schedules. The platform supports shift templates, recurring shifts, drag-and-drop scheduling and flex teams for efficient workforce allocation. It also considers employee availability and absences to ensure optimal scheduling. Additionally, you can manage personnel costs, track wage costs and create schedules based on work hours or budgeted labor costs.

For time tracking and PTO management, Shiftbase can track worked hours, manage time-off requests and ensure compliance with labor regulations. Employees can view their schedules, request time off and track their hours through the mobile app. Also, managers can approve or deny time-off requests and monitor employee attendance.

The human resource management module includes tools for creating and managing employee profiles, storing important documents and managing employee communications. The software also offers compliance management tools to help businesses adhere to labor laws and regulations. This includes features for tracking overtime hours, managing minimum wage and Working Hours Act (ATW) compliance, and generating audit reports.

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$15.99 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
$3.50/Employee, Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Mobile

Product Assistance

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24/7 Live Support
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24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Start Scheduling For Free: OpenSimSim offers the starter plan for free and doesn’t require credit card information to start scheduling. You can schedule up to 10 workers in one location and department at no cost.
  • Manage Your Team Efficiently: According to our data, OpenSimSim offers 85% of key employee management tools out of the box. This includes multiple pay rates, access permissions, staff roles, self-service portals, labor budgeting and cost tracking. It also centrally stores staff documents and certificates and sends expiry alerts based on your rules.
  • Schedule From Anywhere: The platform offers a robust mobile app, SocialSchedules, which has ratings of 4.5 and 4.8 on the Play Store and Apple Store, respectively. You can use it to create schedules, communicate with team members, publish shifts and track tasks from anywhere.
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  • Start Scheduling For Free: The starter plan lets you manage up to 75 employees in one location across five teams for free. You can manage employee profiles, create schedules, assign tasks and set role-based permissions. Employees can also track time manually via the mobile app.
  • Streamline PTO Management: Shiftbase's time and attendance management tools, highly rated with a 91 score by our analysts, offer a streamlined PTO management process. Employees can easily request and track time off, while managers can efficiently approve or deny requests and monitor attendance. This not only reduces administrative burden but also ensures accurate payroll calculations and compliance with labor regulations.
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  • Employee Scheduling: Easily create and adjust your team's schedule per day or week by week. See who's available, handle shift swaps and manage time-off requests in one place. You can set reminders for your team and share updated schedules instantly.
  • Team Communication: Keep your team connected with built-in messaging that supports personal messages as well as team announcements and group chats. You can also use the logbook to store files and important notices and share them with your entire team or specific groups.
  • Notifications: Improve accountability by instantly notifying employees of updated schedules and modifications. Send shift reminders and confirmations to improve staff attendance while finding replacements faster.
  • Time Clock: The mobile app allows staff members to log attendance and track time from a phone or tablet. Review timesheets, approve hours and handle breaks with ease. You can also export time data directly for payroll to avoid manual errors.
  • Timesheets: Simplify your payroll process with clear and easy-to-understand timesheets. See the hours worked, breaks taken and costs for each pay period. You can approve or edit timesheets on the go and get alerts if someone misses a break, ensuring compliance with federal labor regulations.
  • Reporting: Uncover hidden labor costs with reports that compare your scheduled hours to actual hours worked. Use punctuality reporting to identify latecomers and spot repeat offenders via overtime reports.
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  • Employee Scheduling: Create and publish work schedules with an overview of expected costs. Repeat standard shifts by dragging and dropping into upcoming schedules while building custom templates. Get employee availability reminders when creating schedules while sending automated shift reminders. Invite employees to pick open shifts.
  • Time Tracking: Prevent errors while recording employee work hours using an online time tracking module. Employees can clock in via mobile apps or desktops based on GPS locations. Copy work hours from timesheets to time registration automatically while saving manual effort and errors.
  • Absence Registration: Automate absence management processes while tracking vacation hours and employee leave requests. Employees can create leave requests while forwarding them automatically for supervisor approval. Get a real-time overview of accumulated vacation hours while entering balance hours for new employees.
  • Resource Management: Manage vacation balances, employment contracts, employee work hours and information from one place. Process employment contract modifications while calculating overtime hours accurately. Set employee birthday and anniversary notifications.
  • HRM: Build personnel files with employee notes, automatic leave accrual, contract reminders, notifications for anniversaries and birthdays, and automatic calculation of plus/minus hours. You can track employee competencies and certificates, monitor employee well-being through overtime and absence tracking, and receive alerts when documents expire.
  • Reporting: Get an accurate picture of worked, scheduled and approved employee working hours. Gain in-depth insights into labor costs compared to revenue, worked hours per department or a team and more. Generate customized exportable reports containing crucial operational data.
  • Mobile App: Manage workforce schedules, absences and availability on the go using Android and iOS apps. Monitor employee work hours while posting important announcements and messages from anywhere. Receive push notifications about timesheets and availability changes.
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Product Ranking

#59

among all
Employee Scheduling Software

#103

among all
Employee Scheduling Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

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75
78
52
86
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91
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Mobile Capabilities
Employee Management
Leave and Absence Management

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

OpenSimSim
Shiftbase
+ Add Product + Add Product
Collaboration Employee Management Leave And Absence Management Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Reporting And Analytics Schedule Management Security And Compliance Shift Management Time And Attendance Management 78 86 52 93 71 64 80 43 68 74 52 62 91 83 63 81 84 67 79 74 0 25 50 75 100
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88%
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93%
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78%
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83%
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

70%
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80%
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User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 552 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 421 reviews
90%
of users recommend this product

OpenSimSim has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 90% when considering 552 user reviews from 1 recognized software review sites.

90%
of users recommend this product

Shiftbase has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 90% when considering 421 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

n/a
4.6 (225)
4.5 (552)
4.4 (196)

Awards

OpenSimSim stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Shiftbase stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Smooth Setup: The platform is easy to implement with a guided onboarding experience that helps users set up employee profiles, departments and recurring shifts.
Efficient Communication: Users appreciate the built-in messaging option, which allows managers to share news, post announcements and message employees directly.
Prompt Customer Support: Users report receiving timely and helpful responses from the vendor’s support team, which leads to faster turnaround times for platform issues and troubleshooting.
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Increased Flexibility: Users appreciate the ability to assign different roles and create flexible rosters, making the platform suitable for self-rostering and cross-team visibility. It offers color coding to differentiate users and tasks, improving visual clarity.
Ease of Use: The software is user-friendly and requires minimal training. It simplifies scheduling and time tracking, especially when compared to manual or Excel-based methods.
Time-Saving: Shiftbase significantly reduces the time spent on administrative tasks like calculating hours and scheduling, with users reporting substantial time savings.
Responsive Support and Help Resources: Users consistently highlight the excellent customer service for its quick responses and effective issue resolutions.
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Sync Issues: Some users have faced syncing problems between the platform’s desktop and mobile app versions. This may affect business performance and lead to the loss of critical information.
Printing Limitations: The platform can’t print schedules, forcing users to use Microsoft Excel to print physical copies of a shift.
Customization Challenges: Users found it difficult to customize views and dashboards. Some also complained about a lack of customizations such as blackout dates, multiple types of PTO and schedule editing permissions.
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Lengthy Setup Process: Transitioning to Shiftbase from other systems requires a time investment. Users mention that setup can take two to three days, but the platform is highly efficient once it’s operational.
Challenging User Interface: While Shiftbase is functional, users mention that its presentation, particularly in areas like team rosters and part-time employee scheduling, could be more refined with color-coded visual representations.
Limited Advanced Features: The platform has limited functionalities, such as no custom fields, rigid reporting templates and a lack of customizable graphical representations for tracking specific tasks or plotting work hours.
Clocking Issues: The system doesn’t automatically log out employees based on their physical location. Users have complained about spending time manually adjusting or verifying clock-in and clock-out times when employees forget to log their hours properly.
Lack of Detailed Change Logs: There are no clear records of who removed or altered shifts, which limits accountability and tracking.
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OpenSimSim is a user-friendly platform for small to medium-sized businesses with straightforward scheduling needs. Its onboarding process is smooth, and the ability to communicate directly with employees through the platform is a significant advantage.During testing, I found it helpful to manage a small team with features like employee profiles, user photos and color-coded positions to enhance the overall experience. Additionally, the vendor's customer support is responsive and helpful, taking inputs from users to update the software continually.However, OpenSimSim falls short in some critical areas. The lack of customization can be frustrating. For instance, I couldn't set specific blackout dates or a notice period for PTO requests. This may lead to last-minute scheduling challenges, as employees can submit requests whenever they want.On top of that, the platform doesn’t let you filter push notifications, so staff members receive notifications for every scheduling change, even if it doesn’t concern them. Another drawback is the absence of AI-driven features. You must manually input employee availability based on PTO requests to get automated conflict alerts when scheduling, which can be time-consuming and error-prone.Overall, OpenSimSim is a great starting point for businesses looking for basic scheduling and time-tracking tools. However, larger organizations with more complex needs may find the platform limiting due to its lack of customization and AI assistance.

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Shiftbase is a workforce management and scheduling platform that offers one of the best starter plans for free. You can start managing employee databases and schedule shifts of up to 75 employees in one location across five teams.In my experience, Shiftbase was easy to onboard if you’re not migrating from other scheduling platforms. However, the process is more cumbersome when you’re looking to migrate employee and scheduling data from an external platform. Unlike its competitors, Shiftbase cannot automatically set up your account using a CSV and Excel file containing your business data.One of the things I like most about Shiftbase is how easy it is to create flexible schedules, factoring in staff costs, revenue and budgets. Managers can track working hours through the website, mobile app or clock terminal. This gives insights into attendance and wage costs, allowing for better decision-making and optimized staffing. Additionally, it’s easy to manage employee leave and absences with Shiftbase, making it ideal for businesses with flexible or part-time staff.The platform can connect directly with payroll systems, reducing manual data entry and ensuring accurate, on-time payments. Shiftbase also offers basic reporting tools that help businesses understand budget allocation and staff work hours.Based on my experience and the feedback from other users, Shiftbase is a great option for businesses that need a simple and efficient way to manage their workforce. However, it lacks many advanced features that may be essential for larger enterprises with bigger teams. For example, it doesn't offer built-in AI for conflict alerts, seasonal demand analysis or workforce optimization based on seasonal trends.Overall, Shiftbase is a suitable choice for small to medium-sized businesses seeking a user-friendly and affordable workforce management solution. Its ease of use and focus on core scheduling and time-tracking features make it a good option for businesses with straightforward scheduling needs. However, larger enterprises with complex requirements, such as advanced analytics, AI-powered optimization or integration with multiple systems, might find Shiftbase's feature set limited.

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